Best ninja training video ever.

Review: GI Joe Snake Eyes Declassified

Ok I have not written a full book review in a long time, but I am just finishing a couple books and I have been on a big tear of reading graphic novels. First up is the new update and re-telling of the Snake Eyes origin in the devil’s Due GI Joe line. Being thirty four at the moment I am I grew up on GI Joe. Amazing that 80’s liberal parents everywhere like mine bought there kids entire armies of Joe action figures. If your not from this era then you need not read on.

There is also an upcoming Hollywood take on GI Joe and I’ll also be commenting on the movie.

The graphic novel in question is a smart well constructed book that uses the things we know about Snake eyes and fills in the gaps. One of the coolest subtexts in GI Joe was always the story behind snake eyes. A goth ninja unable to speak hidden behind cloth because of horrible scarring we assume had happened to him in battle. Snake Eyes was the only good guy in the Joe who hold a candle on coolness to the Cobra guys.

(Side note cobra had the coolest outfits, Vehicles and they had a heavy metal band named cold slither. So much cooler than Joe)

The cobra dudes always looked tough and Snake Eyes we knew had some long standing feud with cobra’s ninja Stormshadow. Here we get the story of how the men who became enemies fought side by side in the Vietnam war.Trouble happened when Snake eyes excelled at the stormshadow’s family ninja dojo. Jealousy kills everything.

So I knew this was the Snake Eyes declassified but it is so much more. I was surprised by the connection Snake Eyes has to the very birth of cobra. It was a bit outlandish but come on so is a guy named Roadblock who talks in rhyme – if I can accept that I follow this story.

Perhaps my only problem with this book is the how simple and throw away the accident that scarred and silenced Snake Eyes was. It happens in a helicopter crash on the way to a mission. Snake eyes should have been fighting 40 cobra commandos and jumped on a grenade to save scarlet. Over all the book was good.

So the movie… I am worried. It is set to be directed by Stephen Sommers whose first mummy movie was a entertaining if not vapid Indiana Jones rip off. Not great but it was no Van Helsing. The problem is the fucker directed that one too. Van Helsing was unwatchable and painful in like fifteen ways.

The worst part is I want this to rock. My friends in Indiana and I always used to talk about writing a GI Joe live action screenplay just for fun. There are several things I wish I could have expressed to the producers but I know it is too late.

Don’t make Cobra commander a wimp. Make him a brilliant anarchist organizer and not one once of camp. I think the Campyness needs to be there but not cobra cammander. He needs to quote dead Russian anarchists and have a valid argument that makes sense. He should believe he has to destroy the governments of the world who have failed to control the corporations. He should blame the governments of the world for some tradegy in his personal life.

Destro should be the crazy one driven by his family curse to simply destroy law and order. The two should not trust each other. I am all for campy-ness behind that. Bring on the cobra shaped headquaters hidden in the desert that rises up when needed. I am down. Just forget the native American Joe who has the eagle on his shoulder. What were they thinking with that one.

Next review: The Desert by Bryon Morrigan

Some super awesome bad movies...

And a few good ones. I’ve had a good run…

Lucifer complex: Sir Bru-dawg and I were at some record store and I was looking through old video tapes and stumbled upon this cinematic turd.It looked awful so of course Bru-dawg bought it. It was a science fiction movie about nazi cult doctors breeding clones on some island starring Robert Vanhan. If your old enough you’ll know him from the magnificent seven and the man from UNCLE. If your not old enough he goes down "oh yeah that guy," status.The movie is the reason fast forward buttons exist. It was funny and bad but the wrap-around story was almost unwatchable. I got the impression that the middle part of the movie was too short or awful and they thought they would add this story at the beginning and end. So the first half an hour is this dude after the end of the world watching human history on Crystal chips(that only show black and white). Eventually he discovers the end of the human race is caused by the nazi doctors.Very bad watch Zardoz instead.

3:10 to Yuma: Christian Bale rocks, everything he acts in pretty much is gold. Sure the action scenes were a bit over the top but with the actors it was an improvement on the OG Leonard Elmore film.

Duel to Death: I watched this with Randall (My co-author on the forthcoming Straight edge book) because it is hands down my favorite kungfu movie ever. An underrated classic that has everything you would need in a Wuxia pan film. Excellent sword fights, ninjas – lots of ninjas, backwards jumping, gore, shoalin monks, mystical kungfu.

Water Margin: Chang cheh Shaw brothers classic based on the super old school kungfu novel. Super strange flick that has 101 characters and 90 minutes into the film they are still introducing them and the actors that play them in title cards. Like the credits never end. As in all his film the blood flows, brutal Kungfu. Probably my least favorite Chang Cheh movie so far but I enjoyed it enough.

Curse of the Golden Flower: sure it’s an overproduced melodrama for the first hour but once the ninjas assassins show there is not one damn thing to complain about. Chow yun Fat is amazing as the emperor.Although I liked watching it at home, it was meant for the big screen and I’m glad I saw it that way.

Twitch of the Death Nerve: Bru-dawg pick. Mario Bava directed pre-Friday the 13th slasher film. It is a weird slasher movie because there is not one killer. everyone kills everybody. For fans of Italian horror it is a must see film.

Raiders of Atlantis: Bru-dawg pick. Italian low budget sci-fi action film, so Atlantis comes up out of the ocean and sends a tidal wave that destroys the world. It was strange very much like the director’s cut of Jim Cameron’s the abyss. Atlantis populated by a punk rock biker gang who slowly drives around Florida killing the surviving humans. The plot makes negative sense, but it is a hell of a entertaining must see bad film. Even movie madness doesn’t have it.

2019: After the fall of New York – Bru-dawg and I had a super bad post apoc night that started with raiders of atlantis and ended with this movie. Low budget Italian rip-off of escape from NY that also has pretty much the same plot as children of men. This movie is crucial and I feel like a poser for having never before witnessed it. As bu-dawg correctly pointed out if you don’t like this you don’t like bad movies. There are also this super bizarre planet of the apes dudes that show up,it is quite a film.
Also watching X-files season 5, Dead zone season two.

'Oh yeah that Guy' memorials

Biron James survived Vietnam to return to the states as one of those actors who as soon as he gets on the screen everyone in the room says "Oh yeah that Guy." Not only was he great in Enemy Mine and Cabin boy but lets face it he had the best line in Blade Runner. I'm sure I'll do this again with the guy who played the subway ghost in Ghost. Also note Biron James had a movie come out four years after his death.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001397/